Gary Oldman as Oswald; Seinfeld spoof; Pesci-Tommy Lee Jones wig battle; Kevin Bacon's career revival; Oliver Stone's Dave cameo; Tommy Lee Jones in gold paint; Dealey Plaza recreation; John Williams score; New Orleans setting; specter of JFK; character actors in tiny roles
Offered as number one: Oldman as Oswald is creepy, great, and looks like Oswald.
Oldman must have shot much of his material separately with Stone; a 'Gary Oldman cut' as a standalone Oswald movie is wished for. — Chris Ryan
Deleted-scene story: Oldman asked Stone to point the camera at him late at night for an elegiac Oswald monologue; Stone shot him in a casket and planned to end the film with it before making a different call; it can be found on YouTube. — Brian Koppelman
The 1992 Seinfeld spoof 'The Boyfriend' features Wayne Knight and Keith Hernandez; Hernandez is praised and then jabbed as possibly a QAnon guy.
'The Boyfriend' is remembered as the episode that showed Seinfeld would be the biggest show, with the spitter bit called lights out. — Bill Simmons
Bacon is said to call the film a turning point that reignited his career, leading to A Few Good Men. — Bill Simmons
Stone's self-deprecating cameo in Dave two years later has aged best for one participant. — Bill Simmons
Tommy Lee in gold paint getting slapped by Pesci in a Dangerous Liaisons outfit is praised as the good version of a wild idea, unlike a cut Nicholson idea in The Departed; Tommy Lee doing it is what makes it great. — Bill Simmons
Objection: the same scene bumps against what's aged worst, the film's attitude about homosexuality, called retrograde and unacceptable; the counterpoint is that it was part of Garrison's case against Shaw and that era's judgment. — Brian Koppelman
Stone recreated the assassination in Dealey Plaza, spending $4 million to restore it to 1963 conditions and reroute traffic; Sutherland and Costner memorized their monologues. — Bill Simmons
Debate on whether acting is mostly memory: one participant says no, the camera reveals compelling people like Sutherland and memorizing matters more in theater; it is jokingly settled at 70% memory. — Brian Koppelman
John Williams's score and New Orleans as a setting are named.
The specter of JFK himself: the speech that opens Stone's documentary, the Caesar-like shot in the X speech and the still photograph of Kennedy.
